Brexit

[Factotum]

He's just your standard posh idiot. Seems like you could talk about crop rotation with him and It would be OK but utterly clueless about everything else. nice coat though.

[Loki]

3 hours ago, Keith Houchen said:

Here is his voting record.  I agree that he isn't an out and out cunt like Johnson is, but I don't trust him.

https://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/24964/rory_stewart/penrith_and_the_border/votes

It's always worth mentioning, when people link to voting records like this, that convention is that you vote with your party whip unless you have a free vote.  So the vast majority of Tory (or Labour) MPs have identical voting records.  Even if you personally don't much like a policy, you try to influence as much as you can behind the scenes, and then hold your nose and vote it through - that's how being a member of a political party.  If you do vote against party line, incidentally (not withstanding the shitshow of the last 6 months) it's a quick way to find yourself isolated and without influence or indeed seats on committees.

So it's a little redundant to criticise MPs for most of their voting record.  The really interesting stuff is where you've got a free vote.  So for example Rory voted for equal gay rights, and gay marriage.

I'd also say he is definitely not an idiot.  If you ever saw his documentary series on Afghanistan, you'd have been struck by his deep understanding and intelligence.  He also has an impressive record of actual international experience and governance which most politicians can't touch.

Frankly, he's in the wrong party.

Edited June 10, 2019 by Loki

[Devon Malcolm]

He just wants to pack 18 year olds off into a compulsory education camp, that's all. He's just another upper class Tory cunt who wants to go after young people first and foremost, failing to understand why they're so pissed off in the first place, and having no concept of the kinds of lives they lead unless they're kids of diplomats and Oxbridge graduates.

[SuperBacon]

Died of cringe at this 

 

[Devon Malcolm]

There aren't enough 'How do you do, fellow kids' gifs in the world, really.

[PunkStep]

2 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

Died of cringe at this 

 

He's a fucking spenk isn't he.

"I'm a man of the people, come and see me in Kew Gardens"

Kew Gardens...£14 entry. Man of the people indeed.

[The King Of Swing]

1 hour ago, scratchdj said:

Another one does a Jeremy:

I’d be interested to know the reaction if a man had made such a mistake and had then claimed it was something that women normally do.

To be fair she only said what everyone thinks, right?

[Keith Houchen]

4 hours ago, Loki said:

It's always worth mentioning, when people link to voting records like this, that convention is that you vote with your party whip unless you have a free vote.

Yep. He toes the Tory line, the line of cunts. 

[MPDTT]

I'd like to see Jeremy Hunt or Rory Stewart as PM, but I have no vote anymore having resigned my party membership after the Brexit vote and shift to the right. Sadly, I can't see any outcome where Boris doesn't win this contest - he has enough support in the parliamentary party to get to the final 2 and the overwhelming support of the membership. 

What a choice at the next election.......Boris fn' Johnson or an antisemite marxist who refers to terrorists as his friends. I miss the days where the Conservative party stood for free markets with a social conscience and the Labour party was electable having abandoned socialism and adopted a position of fiscal responsibility. 

[hallicks]

You miss the choice of neoliberalism lite or neoliberalism classic. What a wonderful political spectrum that was. 

Please do cite examples of the man himself's antisemitism, thanks. 

[BomberPat]

30 minutes ago, hallicks said:

Please do cite examples of the man himself's antisemitism, thanks. 

It's less that the man himself is antisemitic, more that he's either incredibly ignorant as to what antisemitism looks like, or incredibly slow/reluctant to act against it. 

He's defended antisemitic artists because he "didn't look closely enough" at the image (which, as weak an excuse as it is, I believe, as he does seem to be genuinely oblivious to the tropes of antisemitism). 

The Jewish Chronicle published seven questions for Corbyn back in 2015 - before many of his supporters had decided that allegations of antisemitism were merely a concerted smear attack by powerful moneyed lobbies with undue influence over the media (which really isn't as strong an argument against accusations of antisemitism as they think it is...).

Quote

1. Did you donate, as alleged by its founder, to Deir Yassin Remembered (DYR), a group that publishes open antisemitism, run by Holocaust denier Paul Eisen — an organisation so extreme that even the Palestine Solidarity Campaign refuses to associate with it?

2. Have you, as Mr Eisen claims, regularly attended DYR’s annual conference?

3. Why have you accepted an invitation to appear at a conference on August 22 alongside Carlos Latuff, the notorious anti-Semitic cartoonist?

4. Why did you write to the Church of England authorities to defend Rev Stephen Sizer, a vicar banned from social media because of his habit of posting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, telling them that Rev Sizer was “under attack” because he had “dared to speak out over Zionism”?

5. Why do you associate with Hamas and Hezbollah and refer to them as your “friends”?

6. Why have you failed to condemn the anti-Semitic posters and banners that dominate the annual Al-Quds Day rally, sponsored by the Stop The War Coalition, which you chair?

7. Why did you describe Raead Salah, a man convicted of the blood libel, as an ‘honoured citizen’?

There's also this thread of antisemitic incidents within Labour - again, not necessarily of Corbyn himself, but they speak to his inaction against the allegations;

 

 

I don't personally believe Corbyn, or many of his supporters, are consciously antisemitic. But I've spent enough time in leftist groups, party meetings, working with refugee charities and whatnot to see that there is a problem of antisemitism on the left - stemming sometimes from an anti-banker, anti-authority world-view that in some tendencies can lean too strongly into conspiracy and age-old "Jews run the world" tropes, and more recently stemming from a near-obsessive umbrage with Israel. Many of the most fervent supporters of Palestine I know are fixated on it to the point that it's essentially the one political issue they dedicate any time to, and it often makes them blind to the overtly antisemitic nature of much of the material they share and tacitly support.

There's always going to be the "I'm not antisemitic, I'm anti-Israel/anti-zionist" excuse, but it's become such a rote phrase that it's almost meaningless. It's used to shut down any criticism, rather than allow for self-reflection, rather than say, "someone has found my comments antisemitic, I should engage with this criticism, and consider the implications". Because we're the good guys, right, we can't be racist?!

Just yesterday, here in Jersey, the chief Rabbi published a piece in the local newspaper to say that his congregation were routinely, almost daily, subject to verbal abuse, that the synagogue was routinely vandalised, and that they've reached the point of requiring a security guard. The very first comment on the article was "how's his view on Palestine?". You'll see the same thing repeated across social media - whenever a Jewish person mentions their Jewishness, they'll be pushed to account for the actions of the state of Israel, or more specifically the current Netanyahu administration. When you conflate Jewish people anywhere with the state of Israel, and with the current Israeli government, you're being antisemitic. 

 

tl;dr - Corbyn may not be actively antisemitic, but he at the very least shows a shocking ignorance of antisemitism, and either a reluctance or inability to act on it, and far too many of his supporters refuse to engage constructively in the dialogue around it.

 

As for Rory Stewart - he's what David Cameron was before he was elected; the reasonably liberalising influence, and enough of a no-name to be a blank slate for the electorate to project their values on. I'm hoping his National Service nonsense puts paid to that, though.

[John Matrix]

17 hours ago, Keith Houchen said:

He is a cunt, might not be a bigger cunt than some of the other contenders but he is still a tory and we can't overlook this fact as it makes him a cunt.  

...yeah, but...

17 hours ago, Factotum said:

He's just your standard posh idiot. Seems like you could talk about crop rotation with him and It would be OK but utterly clueless about everything else. nice coat though.

Oh, come on...

13 hours ago, Devon Malcolm said:

He just wants to pack 18 year olds off into a compulsory education camp, that's all. He's just another upper class Tory cunt 

...now now..

11 hours ago, PunkStep said:

He's a fucking spenk isn't he.

Bloody hell lads...

1 hour ago, MPDTT said:

I'd like to see Jeremy Hunt or Rory Stewart as PM

...Alright, fair enough.

[Factotum]

Quote

I'd like to see Jeremy Hunt

If this sentence doesn't end with 'smacked in the face' then it has no value

Edited June 11, 2019 by Factotum

[hallicks]

Thanks @BomberPat, excellent stuff as always. The portrayal of Corbyn as anti-semite is so ingrained in the narrative now, this kind of dispassionate dialogue is what's needed to build bridges and weed out the problem. The problem is, you have an extremely hostile, right-wing media and incumbent government, who have no interest in dialogue (or any genuine concern about the welfare of Jews) and simply use the AS narrative as a stick to bash Corbyn with. I'm not saying he doesn't have questions to answer, but you know that 99% of the people yelling AS really don't give a shit, they just want Corbyn gone.

 

[Carbomb]

2 hours ago, BomberPat said:

It's less that the man himself is antisemitic, more that he's either incredibly ignorant as to what antisemitism looks like, or incredibly slow/reluctant to act against it. 

He's defended antisemitic artists because he "didn't look closely enough" at the image (which, as weak an excuse as it is, I believe, as he does seem to be genuinely oblivious to the tropes of antisemitism). 

Absolutely agreed. I grew up knowing a lot of people like him. They're not antisemitic, they're just idiots who've not grown out of the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" way of thinking.

Quote

The Jewish Chronicle published seven questions for Corbyn back in 2015 - before many of his supporters had decided that allegations of antisemitism were merely a concerted smear attack by powerful moneyed lobbies with undue influence over the media (which really isn't as strong an argument against accusations of antisemitism as they think it is...).

This is one point where I disagree, because what you appear to be implying is that said people are referring to Jews.

I can't speak for any other left-wingers, but I would venture to surmise that many of them share similar views to my own, which is that the aforementioned shady cabal has never meant "Jews" and always meant the right-wing, imperialist, capitalist establishment. I know Rupert Murdoch isn't Jewish, nor has any American president ever been, nor all but one British prime minister either, nor Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, the Rockefellers, and they are just as much at the forefront, if not more so, of what I consider to be the problem as much as any Jewish magnate, or any magnate of any other ethnicity. Murdoch in particular.

Quote

There's also this thread of antisemitic incidents within Labour - again, not necessarily of Corbyn himself, but they speak to his inaction against the allegations;

 

I don't personally believe Corbyn, or many of his supporters, are consciously antisemitic. But I've spent enough time in leftist groups, party meetings, working with refugee charities and whatnot to see that there is a problem of antisemitism on the left - stemming sometimes from an anti-banker, anti-authority world-view that in some tendencies can lean too strongly into conspiracy and age-old "Jews run the world" tropes, and more recently stemming from a near-obsessive umbrage with Israel. Many of the most fervent supporters of Palestine I know are fixated on it to the point that it's essentially the one political issue they dedicate any time to, and it often makes them blind to the overtly antisemitic nature of much of the material they share and tacitly support.

There's always going to be the "I'm not antisemitic, I'm anti-Israel/anti-zionist" excuse, but it's become such a rote phrase that it's almost meaningless. It's used to shut down any criticism, rather than allow for self-reflection, rather than say, "someone has found my comments antisemitic, I should engage with this criticism, and consider the implications". Because we're the good guys, right, we can't be racist?!

 

Quote

Just yesterday, here in Jersey, the chief Rabbi published a piece in the local newspaper to say that his congregation were routinely, almost daily, subject to verbal abuse, that the synagogue was routinely vandalised, and that they've reached the point of requiring a security guard. The very first comment on the article was "how's his view on Palestine?". You'll see the same thing repeated across social media - whenever a Jewish person mentions their Jewishness, they'll be pushed to account for the actions of the state of Israel, or more specifically the current Netanyahu administration. When you conflate Jewish people anywhere with the state of Israel, and with the current Israeli government, you're being antisemitic. 

Sorry, split the post at the wrong point there.

Here's where my problem with this argument begins. It is highly arguable as to who conflated Jews with Israel and extreme Zionism in the first place, and for what purpose. I personally would argue that right-wing Zionists did, for several reasons:

1. To silence any criticism of Israeli government actions by denouncing them as antisemitic.

2. To attempt to split Jews, whether Israeli or Diasporic, off from the global civil rights and anti-racism movement, which has been seen traditionally as left-wing and progressive. 

3. To negatively impact the political culture of left-wing Jews, which, lest we forget, was dominant pre-WWII. Politically, there is a strong tradition in Jewish communities across the world of socialism, and, of course, many notable left-wing commentators are Jewish, like Noam Chomsky.

 

Which takes me to another point: on principle, I refuse to use the word "antisemitism" where possible, because I think it creates a semiotic and psychological disconnect in people's minds that racism against Jews is somehow different to racism against anyone else, which it obviously isn't. As far as I'm concerned, racism = racism = racism. In absolute frankness, I think the very act of differentiating types of racism from each other is racist in itself.

It's lots of little mechanisms like this that I believe contribute to the problem of anti-Jewish racism on the left, and it's something that needs to be strongly addressed. As long as Jews are being made to feel that their feelings of being discriminated against will be taken less seriously than those of other BME people, it is a major, major problem.

However, we also need to recognise this is something that has been also been deliberately cultivated by the right-wing. It allows the extreme Zionists and Israeli government to say to Jews everywhere "See? They don't care about you, they don't really believe in civil rights for everyone. We are the only ones who have your interests in mind."

The worst thing about that is the left have fallen right into that trap, when we should have kept discipline, and stuck to our principles which tell us in no uncertain terms that anti-Jewish racism cannot be tolerated in any form.

It's too complex to draw at the moment, but let me put it this way: for me the Venn diagram has at least five circles -

1. Jews

2. Zionists

3. Israelis

4. The Israeli government

5. Supremacist, conservative right-wing

The only people I have a problem with, that any left-winger should have a problem with, are those who fall into the fifth circle, no more.

BUT it's also been the aim of right-wing, extreme Zionists, many of whom include fundamentalist evangelical Christians, to con people into thinking that all five of those circles are one, in order to push an agenda and silence any criticism of that agenda.

Quote

 

tl;dr - Corbyn may not be actively antisemitic, but he at the very least shows a shocking ignorance of antisemitism, and either a reluctance or inability to act on it, and far too many of his supporters refuse to engage constructively in the dialogue around it.

My tl;dr is: yes, you are absolutely right in that on the left, we've got to live up to the standards we've set ourselves, and it needs dealing with. It's a major weakness, and we need to have more discipline in sticking to our principles.

But we also need to recognise that the right wing have cynically and deliberately weaponised that weakness. I don't believe for one minute that the majority of right wingers screaming "antisemitism" at Corbyn actually really care about racism against Jews - they just care that the accusations hurt his chances of getting elected. And, quite frankly, I think they'll do the same if any remotely left-leaning gentile political leader comes into play. The only reason they didn't try it with Milliband was because he was Jewish, so they tried everything else.

I don't like Corbyn. I actually think he's quite arrogant in many ways, and he's not really all that left-wing; he's very much in the traditional Labour mould of choosing to manage the excesses of capitalism by dabbling here and there with socalist bits and bobs, instead of truly pushing socialism as a real, beneficial alternative to communities and people. 

I also don't think he should become PM. He's already had the greatest impact he's ever going to have, which is to get the door to real left-wing politics kicked back open again, and have people discussing and developing them en masse, something the right will have great trouble in trying to close down again. But he really should step down and let one of the new generation of left-wing Labour take over now.

 

EDIT: Sorry, another point I forgot to include is that what a lot of mainstream commentators fail to keep in mind when discussing left-wing criticism of Israel is that a lot of it is not from the perspective of "Jews vs. Gentiles", but from the simple perspective of "yet another gang of white people stomping into countries long inhabited by non-white people and colonising it at the expense of the original inhabitants". Something that's thrown into particularly stark relief when you look at how badly many of the Eastern European Ashkhenazi Jews treat the native Middle Eastern Mizrahi Jews, the Ethiopian Beta Israel, the Sudanese Jews, and even the Southern European Sephardi.

Edited June 11, 2019 by Carbomb